PO BOX 391
CORDOVA, ALASKA
907.424.6665
FOUNDING OF CORDOVA
The town of Cordova began as part of the rush to develop the copper bonanza in the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains. After acquiring the old cannery buildings at Odiak Slough, a survey crew from Valdez laid out a townsite, and Heney bought half the land in the townsite for his railroad. Heney and his crew organized the new town in a brief ceremony on March 26, 1906. He changed the name of the town from Eyak to Cordova after learning that the Spanish explorer Salvadore Fidalgo had named the body of water in front of the town "Cordova Bay”. A week later, the frst shipload of men and equipment landed at Eyak and construction of the railroad began.
Cordova rapidly evolved from a tent city into a thriving community with businesses and homes. Businesses sprang up around the railroad headquarters and the old cannery buildings. The first lots in the new townsite, which make up the heart of present-day Cordova were sold at auction in May 1908. Construction in the new townsite began soon after. The town grew with the railroad and evolved from a tent city into a thriving community of businesses, residences, a school, hospital, and utilities.
The town incorporated on July 8, 1909, the same month the first section of the railroad opened to traffic. Crews completed construction of the CR&NW Railway line in March 1911 at a cost of $23.5 million. After construction of the rail line was completed, most of the construction workers departed. Cordova settled into its new role as the port and gateway to the interior by way of the Copper River and Northwestern Railway to Chitina and Kennecott, and points north by way of the Chitina-Fairbanks trail.The CR&NW’s dock at Three Tree Point became the nucleus of the port facility. In the years between 1911 and 1938, more than 200 million tons fo Kennecott copper were transported to Cordova by the CR&NW and shipped to the states through the port facility at Ocean Dock.
